


it hurts the worst before it heals

by counta



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Andreil Week 2018, M/M, its a soft fic. its soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 03:39:29
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,288
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15210089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/counta/pseuds/counta
Summary: It's been a while before the blood became an ugly scab that Neil can't help scratching at but sometimes his chest feels just a bit lighter.





	it hurts the worst before it heals

**Author's Note:**

> i wrote this months ago and it just so happens that im gonna post it during andreil week; u rly know a ship is fucked when u wonder if its canon divergent for them to hold hands....

This is the first thing he understands after Riko's death - Andrew was right when he said he wasn't Neil's answer. There's no answering a question that is asked with a punch in the gut and the copper taste of a coin beneath his tongue. Okay, to be honest, Neil isn't sure about that. Maybe it isn't the way the question was asked, maybe it is that it was never a question at all. Neil does not claim he knows Andrew and he is sure Andrew would never claim anything of the sort either. Nevertheless, there are a few things that he's learned, from the short glances that Andrew sometimes sends his way, from the cracks that show the color underneath.  
  
(Neil is sure it was blood red when they met but it has mellowed out a bit right now. Maybe it is a comforting delusion on Neil's side but he'd like to think it's turned into Palmetto orange after all this time.)  
  
And he's learned quite a bit - how Andrew's hands are the only thing steady about him even when his whole body is shaking with the shock, and how the nape of his neck feels under Neil's own hands - god, he loves that part the most - and how Andrew held his face like it wasn't going to be alright. They were both sure it wasn't going to be alright and yet, for some reason, Andrew had still been there. He doesn't want to say always because Andrew doesn't like the ring of it. He doesn't like seeing the open-faced truth in Neil's face. Neil isn't sure he could explain that feeling - it is not comfort and it is not affection, and god knows it is not dependency. Those are all emotions he has felt for Andrew but none of them are this - Andrew, half-alive and medicated to the gills, a crazy reject that could uphold the entire world. Maybe he couldn't but Neil had still believed him. Neil still doesn't know how a broken orphan managed to protect him from the bloody steps that were trailing behind him. They both knew that Neil could be at the wrong end of Ichirou's gun at any moment but Andrew had still wrapped up his wounded face and had kissed him like they had all the time in the world and all Neil could think about back then was how he wasn’t supposed to leave Andrew like this. How Andrew wouldn't stop pretending that he would forget Neil if he was dead tomorrow. Neil knows Andrew couldn't even if he tried.  
  
And then there's the things that Neil learned later on - how Andrew had told Betsy Dobson about him. How Andrew wakes before anybody and how quiet his steps are, how comfortable it feels to be in silence with him, how soft he looks when he sleeps - Neil doesn't like this kind of calm. Neil doesn't like forgetting what they did to him. Andrew's jagged edges are what made Neil see himself in Andrew and he doesn't want to forget what they have been through. He doesn't want to stop being angry because if he does it would mean he is over it and that is something he will never be over.  
  
He still remembers his mother, with her hand over his on the shift stick, teaching him how to drive - she hadn't patted his head in approval but she had slept comfortably in the passenger seat and he had thought this was reward enough - and he remembers her words that were clogging up with blood by the time Neil knew this would be the last time he spoke with her. He still remembers how Abby had held his hands and how she had flinched from what his mother wouldn't have. It makes his throat heavy with things he doesn't have enough time to explain.  
  
Well, despite all that, Andrew looks so peaceful that Neil can't help but let him be.  
  
And there is also this - Andrew with his hand on the lower edge of his shirt and the other hand plastered to his pelvis and Neil's heartbeat almost breaking his ribs. Andrew's mouth on his dick and Neil biting his own hand so he doesn't lose the last of his rational thinking. Andrew is a grounding force when he wants to be and the exact opposite when Neil wants him to be.  
  
The most of it is this, something he can't forget even if he wanted to, though he never would - when Andrew calls his name -  
  
(Neil Josten. God, it's still surreal, even after the aftermath.)  
  
\- when Andrew calls his name it feels like coming home. Not that Neil had ever had a home before Andrew.  
  
Sometimes, Andrew looks like he is getting better - sometimes, not quite soft, not quite warm but the edges have somewhat smoothed out. And Neil knows the scars will always be there but he knows they're moving on. For a brief second Neil wonders what would have come of Andrew if life had been fair to him but he dismisses the thought. Andrew is dark rage and furrowed brows, the knives in his armbands and the fingers that leave bruises in their wake. Andrew would always be a bone that healed the wrong way - but that is not to say he didn’t heal at all, and it is cruel to think about what-ifs in the aftermath. They're here and alive, and Neil is content. Well, if he had to say, Neil loves it altogether.  
  
Oh, that is new too. Neil would not say it though it is not that he doesn't mean it. The truth is that it is far too tainted a word to describe what he and Andrew have - there's no pretty word for 'hell' and it isn't 'love' for sure. It would not be truth - it would be an understatement. There is nothing to describe what he and Andrew have been through and lived through together. He knows that Andrew knows. Then, there is no need for words, because Andrew had known the morning after their first game - the new start. Their first game after Nathaniel was Neil again, forever, and he was free, after Neil had looked up with his mangled, brutally dismorphed face and his chilly blue eyes, no longer his father's, had held Andrew's stare. Andrew had assessed him, like he had always done, from the very beginning when he slammed his racquet into the soft of Neil's belly and the time he had said "give your back to me". Andrew had always been the first one to get it. Then he had nodded to himself and Neil had saw the fear in the twitch of his lips and in the way his eyelids trembled. Still, his hands were steady, always steady, when he had taken Neil's face and had asked "yes or no?", not that it had to be asked. Andrew isn't Neil's answer, for fucking sure, but this was one answer he could always give.  
  
And now there's this - nothing surprises Neil anymore, though he is sure that they surprise people all the time. It's honestly nothing more than relief - they are alive and safe and they are allowed. So what if Andrew kisses him on the couch in the Palmetto waiting room and doesn't try to hide it when Nicky catches them and what if it shows, by the way Neil hides his neck with his hands, though nothing stays hidden for long. They are allowed.  
  
Take this cut-out from time, for example - but let me tell you and keep it in mind, time is an awfully vast thing; one second, one drop, one breath and yet it had felt like a millenia between them -  
  
It starts with Neil, the foxes and Andrew in Abby's living room, watching some shitty rom-com and Nicky's lower lip is already trembling. Sentimental. Ironic, that Neil has never seen Nicky cry when it really hurts. Except once, he doesn't say. Except once, when Neil was already a dead man and he had the fucking shit beaten out of him. Neil once said he found their humanity a curious thing. He finds his own all the same.  
  
It starts a bit later. Neil and Andrew are sitting side by side in the two bean bag chairs that Neil took the effort to move together before this impromptu movie marathon they're having. And Neil is trying to pay attention but the strong set of Andrew's jaw is distracting. He does not look soft when he is like this. Neil likes it better that way. And his eyes are dark, his nose is straight and the shadow from the luminescent lights falls ever so sharply over his features and Neil is straightforward like that - or maybe dumb as fuck, that's what his mother would have called it - but he can't think about anything. Maybe his mind is simply one-track. And he thinks "i want you". Then: "i want to touch you." Sometimes, the want is overwhelming. There's no words - maybe that's why Andrew still calls it nothing. Andrew studies him from the corner of his own eye, waiting for Neil. They're both always waiting for each other. Neil places his hand, palm-up, fingers spread, mere inches above Andrew's thigh but never touching. He doesn't dare.  
  
"Death wish?" Andrew murmurs, eyes still looking straight forward, giving none and taking none.  
  
"Maybe." Neil smiles and keeps his hand where it is. He knows what's next before it happens.  
  
Andrew places his hand atop Neil's, fingers calloused and rough and shorter and steadier. Then, slowly, as if not to startle, his fingers slide inbetween Neil's and he lets their hands rest atop his leg. Andrew is warm and this is a fleeting feeling but not as much as it were before. His chest fills and grows lighter.  
  
(Neil is experienced at reading hints. And Andrew's eyes were as steady as his hands.)  
  
It's not always like this. Sometimes Neil gets a breath away from Andrew, waiting for a silent permission that never comes - Andrew sends a quiet look his way before he looks away, mouth thinning into a white line and Neil knows. He always backs away but the silence is still comforting.  
  
It's only twenty minutes later when Nicky has to pause for a toilet break that the rest of the team notices. Renee is the first one and Neil is glad, having developed a new kind of affection for her as well - she just smiles privately, as if it's a secret between the two of them. Neil gently squeezes Andrew's hand, just because he doesn't know what to do. He is so overflowed with emotions that he's never got to feel. And then there's Nicky, after he comes back, and then Aaron.  
  
"Oh my god." Nicky rubs at his eyes and his surprise is genuine - their hands, still as tightly clasped as they were. "Oh my god, Matt, Dan, look at this as well. If that isn't the sweetest shit-"  
  
"If you don't shut up right now, Nicky, I promise-" Andrew starts. He doesn't finish that thought, distracted by the way Neil gently squeezes his hand.  
  
Nicky doesn't have to have say it either, because all of them - except for Aaron - are staring and Neil cannot discern any emotion on their face besides shock. They're not used to this kind of softness. Not from Neil and certainly not from Andrew. And yes, the team has seen them bloody and dirty and mad and clinging onto each other for dear life when it felt like there was nothing else to hold onto and yes, the team has seen them, hands in hair and kissing, lips bruised and hurting and itching and yearning for more but not like this. Never like this. It has always been something of a secret - not because it's shameful. Neil used to think that Andrew and he were a different kind of monster altogether, both incapable of the kind of soft affection he'd seen in others. He thinks this isn't it either but it is as close as it gets and if Neil had to name it he would call it comfort. Andrew was - still is - relief and calm, and safety.  
  
"Something to say?" Andrew asks, eyes finally focusing on Nicky. Seeing Andrew this unapologetic and this sure of it - this sure of wanting Neil - makes Neil's heart thunder.  
  
Neil feels Andrew's thumb gently rubbing circles into the skin of his hand. And maybe Neil is a bit of a show off - another thing he did not know, another thing that's new - he smiles, lowering his head.  
  
"Oh my god, Neil, that fucker just s-" Nicky starts but Kevin brings his hand down on Nicky's back in a harsh slap.  
  
"No, Andrew, nothing." Renee's voice is gentle and approving. "We can continue now, yes, Nicky?"  
  
Nicky absentmindedly rubs at his shoulderblade, pouting and side-eyeing Neil and Andrew but his eyes are warm and he doesn't say anything else. Aaron huffs, finally looking at them and then turning back again. Neil hears Matt's whisper (when did that happen) and Dan answering him, even quieter (Neil's truly a miracle worker) but Andrew is calm and he doesn't tell any of them to zip it or he'll zip it for them. He just blinks slowly at Neil and Neil is explicitly allowed to feel the relief of the freedom they have gained. He scoots a bit closer to Andrew and when Andrew does not move away Neil leans into the warmth, not quite touching yet. He'll leave that for another day. But today, it is okay. And that's more than Neil could have said about the entirety of the nineteen years he's lived.

**Author's Note:**

> by the way remember when in book thrèè Abby kissed Neil's forehead after patching him up and Neil let her okay remember it ! if you dont remember it its chapter 13 i think ! (if you so wish you can send me aftg prompts at 19tfc.tumblr.com)


End file.
